Here's two excerpts from Tome of Salvation:
1. Men would never profess to understand the faith of the Elves, most believing either the Elves do not believe in Gods, or those that they do worship are but different aspects of the Human pantheon. Of course Elves believe the reverse, claiming all Human Gods are merely a distorted reflection of the Elven pantheon. The truth, in all likelihood, is probably somewhere in between. Due to this lack of understanding, there are very few Humans who worship the Gods of the Elves—the culture of the Elves is too alien to grasp, their faith too oblique and impenetrable. Elves living within the Empire continue to worship their Gods in the same manner they would anywhere, for they have no formalised religions, and conduct all worship on a personal and intimate level.
2. The Human rites and practises involving Khaine are crude and barbaric, and are in many ways an abomination of the God's complex spheres of influence. To the Elves, Khaine is indeed the God of Murder, but he is also the God of War. As such, he plays an important part in their myth cycle and culture, having battled against Slaanesh and helped Aenarion drive back the hordes of Chaos. Before High Elf soldiers march to war, they are sure to whisper an invocation to the Bloody-Handed God to guide their swords and spears. There are similarities, though, between the brutish practises of men who follow Khaine and the abhorrent Dark Elves of distant Naggaroth. These exiled Elves certainly frown at the primitive and clumsy manner in which their chosen God is venerated in the Old World, but their own are merely those same acts of murder, perfected. Their rituals are spectacularly bloody, involving living sacrifices. To the Dark Elves, murder, pain, and death are virtues to be extolled, key components in what makes their society what it is, perfected as an art form and a way of life.
Khaine is the Human God of Murder. His tenets are as follows:
- All death is sacred, but only murder is sacred to Khaine.
- Murder is an act of devotion—do not rush it.
- Murder is its own reward.
- Do not let an opportunity to kill pass you by. Each such moment is a blessing given by Khaine.
- Murder by the hand of another is good, murder by your own hand is better.
- Do not betray the cult, even in death.
- Do not conceal the work of Khaine, even if it leads to your discovery.
This is incredibly restrictive compared to the complex relationship that the elves, Asur/Druchii/Asrai/Eonir might have with him. The Asur still pray to Khaine, for instance, when they know they must do dark deeds for the greater good, and for big war stuff too, not just Asuryan.
At the end of the day, there are obviously major similarities. But there are also notable differences. Is the Human God Khaine the same as the Elven God Khaela Mensha Khaine? Yes, and no. It's a complex situation. But amongst all the elven Gods, Khaine is the most likely to accept non-elven worship, so long as more murder and destruction and war is done, whereas none of the other Elven Gods would ever have such proclivities. Even the Cytharai are rather mono-focused on doing stuff to/with the elves in their various incarnations.
Khaine is in this unique position of...boy howdy just does he love murder. And death. And killing.
Isha, by contrast, is the Mother of the Elves. As in she is known as Isha the Mother. Not Isha The Mother Of All That Lives, though. So keep that in mind. She weeps for every lost elven soul. She is vengeful against those who harm her children - the elves.
But Khaine is wacky woohoo for war and murder and death, and there are human cultists of Khaine who managed to finagle out an incredibly narrowed and specific interpretation of him, to the point of them sharing a name...but not sharing a name. Khaine's bloodlust, I'd say, enables him to willingly stretch himself a bit more than pretty much any of the other Elven Gods would be willing to do, if in fact that is what he has done.
I don't personally hold to the 'canon' of Fantasy! Slaanesh suddenly having the same relationship with the Elves as 40k! Slaanesh in terms of the same extent as going all She Who Thirsts and stuff, but there are other ways to use the Underworld and its various Gods in the Elven Pantheon, who, also, would not give two shits if a human tried praying to them. Because at the end of the day, their purview would be elven souls. Like, I can get Slaanesh having an appreciation for elven stuff, because they feel their emotions so intensely and for so long, though, so don't get it twisted. Uh. Not sure where I was going with this...
Right. Gods. Differences are possible, as are similarities, but linkages maybe not sometimes, depending on things. Asuryan, Kurnous, etc. are incredibly unlikely to listen to anything a human worshipper says. The Old Ones just care about Order, sticking it to Chaos, a Plan, etc. Esmeralda is already the most popular and known, not too big a stretch. Dwarfs roll their eyes at humans trying to do the same thing with the Ancestor Gods as they do with their regular ones, while the AGs probably just shrug about it, if they even notice/care at all in their own weirdness. Humans can
try to worship the Elven Gods. But they just...won't get anything out of it, in the end. They still might do it out of some misplaced sense of revelation/desperation/superiority/take your pick, but that doesn't mean it'll necessarily work.
You see what I mean?
